From Publishers Weekly
Slow Food, a group of 75,000 members that supports recognition of traditional foods and eating patterns (e.g., the family meal), is an important player in today's battle for the palates and stomachs of the world. As "The Official Slow Food Manifesto" states, "Slow Food is an idea that needs plenty of qualified supporters," but to find them, it's going to need more friendly material than this didactic screed. Italian journalist Petrini founded the group in 1989, changing the name of a previous organization from Arcigola to Arcigola Slow Food in response to the opening of a McDonald's in Rome's Piazza di Spagna, a development described in excruciating detail. Petrini's condescending tone ("When you see the word `flavorings' on the package, don't imagine that it always refers to natural substances") isn't helped by a clumsy translation that adheres to Italian syntax. It's a shame, because the elitist tone and convoluted language obscure Petrini's informed opinions on genetically modified organisms and nutritional education in the schools (he references mainly Italian public schools). Petrini's case against McDonald's is perhaps his strongest card, but it's geared mainly to an Italian, or at least European, audience (it's doubtful that many American parents comfort themselves with the thought that "when they're old enough the kids will develop a taste for Barolo") and more thorough and better written arguments have already been made, most notably in Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
With a magazine, web site, and over 400,000 followers organized into local "convivia," or chapters, the slow food movement is poised to revolutionize the way Americans shop for groceries, have their meals, and think about food. The slow food movement advocates a return to traditional recipes, locally grown foods and wines, and eating as a social event. In 1989, Carlo Petrini founded the International Slow Food Movement as a backlash against the fast-food lifestyle and its perpetual haste. Not only did Petrini renounce fast food, he renounced the overall pace of the "fast life," and called for the safeguarding of local economies and gastronomic traditions, and the creation of a new kind of ecologically aware and committed consumerism Petrini commemorates the origins and first steps of the movement, but the story is not told as an autobiography, or even the biography of a movement; rather, it is meant to sum up a current of thought into which his own reflections, and those of all who have worked to promote Slow Food, have flowed. As Newsweek described it, the slow food movement has now become an alternative the American rat race, "a kinder and gentler capitalism."
